The Perfidious Parrot (12 page)

“Hello?” the interrogating officer asked.

“I have no idea what is interesting, Ramona.”

Sergeant Ramona Symonds turned a framed photograph on her desk. De Gier was faced by a starling-like bird with a black face, a reddish brown crest and glittering orange eyes. “My companion bird,” Symonds said. “Mynah and I live together. My human companion took off, she accused Mynah of being too noisy and me of being too quiet.” The sergeant looked across the golden frame. “You live alone?”

“With plants,” de Gier said.

“Gay?”

“The plants?”

“You.”

“No,” de Gier said.

“But you live alone.”

“Plants are company,” de Gier said, “I don’t quite harmonize yet but the barrier is dented.”

“You can’t get it up with women?”

It wasn’t that so much.

“Should I mind my own business?”

De Gier explained, adjusting the ends of his mustache, holding on to his chin, trying to ignore the accusation in the bird’s eyes in the frame, that he couldn’t offer women commitment.
Besides, he didn’t want kids. There were enough kids around already, crack smokers and destroyers of streetcars.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

A brown lady from Surinam, de Gier said, a Hindu woman. Hindus believe in not expecting anything, in uncomplicating life, in finding fulfillment in nothingness.

The sergeant frowned. “A Surinam seaplane crashed here last week. It was overloaded. The pilot had bags stacked on his dashboard.”

De Gier shrugged. “Not that Surinam.”

The sergeant pointed at a filing cabinet. “A robbers’s nest. I have piles of documentation in there. The Colombians use the location as a warehouse.”

De Gier waved the filing cabinet away. “My friend is a nurse.”

“How do you know her?”

“I met her in the hospital.”

“You were ill?”

“I was mugged,” de Gier said.

“In Amsterdam?” Symonds asked. “In Heroin Heaven? Or was the violence connected to your present project?”

De Gier shrugged wearily.

“You understand,” the sergeant said, barely audible above the humming of the air-conditioning, “that I am going to investigate this case fully. If there is the slightest reason to suspect that your pals on the
Admiraal Rodney
are engaged in the drug trade I will grab you too.” She bent toward him. “I am personally interested. My brother in Detroit used to be a dear little fellow. Clever too. Got A’s in math and science. He fed my goldfish. You should see him now.”

“Ambagt & Son tell me they deal in crude oil,” de Gier said.

“Hashish oil?” Symonds asked.

“Stuff you make gasoline out of,” de Gier said.

Symonds turned the photo toward her. “Hi, Mynah.”

De Gier predicted a retreat into niceties.

“So your Hindu princess expects nothing from you,” Symonds asked nicely.

“Hindus belive in Nirvana,” de Gier said. “Nirvana is empty. There is nothing there. How can you expect something from nothing?”

“Her ancestors came from India?”

“They must have,” de Gier said.

“India is a dungheap,” Ramona said. “Believers in nothing create nothing but misery. Any religious faith is a silly assumption that there are gods and that the gods are interested in our welfare.”

“Sayukta came to see me on Earth,” de Gier said.

“To do what?”

“To guide me.”

Sergeant Symonds looked at de Gier’s fly.

De Gier followed up on his symbolism. “She is a tunnel, the Hindu goddess Kali is sometimes represented as a hole in a stone.”

“Sayukta is a tunnel?” Symonds asked. “A hole you can enter?”

“A hole to let me through.”

“And she’ll come along?”

“She is there already.”

“Vagina-priestess Sayukta-Kali,” Symonds said. “Interesting how we keep mixing up sex with mysticism. My hole in a
stone was called Mary-Margaret. Biblical names. I found them attractive. I saw all sorts of far-reaching potential in our connection.”

“Didn’t work out?”

“The more you expect,” said the sergeant, “the less comes of your expectations.”

De Gier got up and looked out of the window. The window faced a yard where a large black man in a cream colored gown danced around parked police cars, motorcycles and bicycles. The man had braided hair, each braid ended in a decoration. The decorations looked like small animal skulls. The dancer’s necklace was made from large orange glass beads. He wore open sandals cut from car tires and was shaking a rattle made from two coconuts, adorned with pink seashells.

“Rat skulls.” Symonds was standing next to de Gier. “Priest Ratty of the First Voodoo Church of Key West blesses our transport.” She waved. Priest Ratty waved too. “He is returning a favor. We’re patrolling the black district more regularly now.”

“Apartheid?” de Gier asked.

“In America?” Sergeant Symonds gaped at him. “Apartheid in free America? Tell me you are kidding.”

“So why is there a black neighborhood that wasn’t patrolled regularly before?”

“Little kids are being bothered there.”

“Why are you bothering me?” de Gier asked. “I have nothing whatever to do with your dead banker.”

“You do,” the sergeant said. She raised a long tapered finger. “You were the only observer in the restaurant who saw something was seriously amiss with that jeep.” She raised another
finger. “You tell me you are about to cruise on the
Admiraal Rodney
which is expected here within a few days.” She raised a third finger. “You and the fat guy and the old gentleman who directs you
and
the murdered man, Stewart-Wynne, stay in the same super-expensive hotel.” She raised her little finger. “I checked around today. The hotel has its own yacht harbor. The harbor master tells me that Stewart-Wynne asked him where boats of the FEADship type would go for repairs here.”

“Ach,” de Gier said.

“The
Admiraal Rodney
,” Symonds said. “The vessel you are about to board was mentioned by name by a bank inspector who was about to be murdered. Doesn’t the yacht belong to Ambagt & Son? Your very own client?”

De Gier shook his head. “Why would I mess up a jeep belonging to an unknown person in such a way that the victim will direct the deadly vehicle at me while I’m having dinner?”

Symonds gazed at the portrait of her bird. “Does the Dutchman really think we believe him, Mynah?’

“Can I go now?” de Gier asked.

Symonds walked him out of the building. Priest Ratty hadn’t finished his ceremony yet. Sergeant and detective waited for the dancer to finish his song.

De Gier was taken to the hotel in a voodoo-blessed motorcycle and sidecar.

“Please tell me why you are here,” Symonds said while they waited at a crossing.

“Piracy,” de Gier said. “Well outside your territory, Sergeant. Near the Eastern Antilles. The cargo of a supertanker. The
Sibylle
.”

She saluted. De Gier watched the Harley drive off, gurgling powerfully down the hotel’s driveway between palm trees
waving huge leaves. Ibises, white and pink, on stilt-like legs, marched across a lawn, looking conceited behind their long curved bills. Palm rats moved about noisily in the crotches of their trees. A waiter, smoking secretly on a balcony, coughed, his cigarette glowing brightly. An acoustic guitar sounded the theme of a Miles Davis composition from behind the screened windows of the dimly lit bar. An electric organ pecked fiercely under the long flowing guitar notes. A drummer caressed a cymbal. A large-breasted slim thirty-year-old in a bikini, striding along slowly holding hands with an old man, smiled at de Gier. He nodded a friendly greeting at the couple while crickets spread a silver sheet of sound reaching out to moonlit sea waves.

“Nice place,” de Gier thought.

Breakfast was served by young waiters. Carefully braided ponytails, adorned by orange ribbons, hung down red tunics above short white pants. The waiters wore rope sandals. They cooked little steaks, large mushrooms, sliced potatoes and tomatoes in cast-iron black pots above charcoal fires. They flip-flopped pancakes and folded omelets with a flick of the wrist in long stemmed pans. They served choice foods circled by arrangements of herbs and edible nasturtium flowers on large white plates. They peeled mangos, kiwis and other tropical fruits that were new to the Dutchmen, or, if requested, squeezed them in hand-held electronic devices. A baking machine, displayed prominently on the terrace, produced fluffy rolls, another machine spat out sliced honeycakes. A baker in striped trousers caught rolls and cakes in little baskets that the waiters plucked from his hands and distributed freely.

Grijpstra, dressed in a green beach suit that he had bought
earlier that morning, looked, from under the long visor of his purple sun hat, at his fellow guests.

Breakfasting men flirted with the waiters, female escorts buttered toast for their older companions. Jewels glittered on the fingers of the women, gold watches gleamed on the hairy wrists of the men.

“The commissaris would like all this,” Grijpstra said.

“Don’t you?” de Gier asked.

“Sure,” bragged Grijpstra although he secretly thought the performance pitiable for some of the women were mere girls and some of the men were decrepit graybeards and what the hell did they think they were doing together?

“Aruba will be much like this.” De Gier had just returned from the airport where the commissaris had chartered a small jet for the day. He smiled at the woman who had greeted him the night before. “You think this is heaven, Henk?” He touched Grijpstra’s arm. “Look at that boat. A classic.”

Grijpstra looked at the three master sailing slowly by. “Yes.” He waved at a waiter and ordered a double helping of peach pie. “Don’t spare the whipped cream.”

De Gier produced a pocket set of binoculars. “That’s beautiful. I’d love to go along.”

“No problem, sir,” the waiter delivering peach pie said. He fetched a leaflet and read the itinerary. The schooner would leave the harbor in another hour and sail by some of the smaller islands nearby. There would be dolphins, rare birds, military maneuvers and sponge fishing to watch. Snacks and drinks on the half hour. A nice clean bathroom. The waiter said he sometimes went on the cruise himself. “Romantic,” the waiter
said. “For you and your friend here. Sea air also speeds up digestion.”

De Gier read the folder. Dutch and Scandinavian fishermen sailing schooners had visited American shores for centuries via the Iceland and Greenland route, even before Columbus cried victory on the more southerly route.

The waiter recommended the sunset trip. “You’ll both love it. Even more romantic.”

“We’ll take the early round trip,” de Gier said.

Grijpstra said that the romantic part didn’t turn him on so much and that, unfortunately, he would be busy all day.

“Part of the job,” de Gier said. “This is a piracy case. Piracy has to do with the sea. The commissaris left instructions that we should be thinking
water
.”

Back in the suite de Gier turned on the radio. A red headed young man with a long ponytail was making the beds. The forecast came on. The announcer predicted rain, drizzle and fog, with winds gusting to twenty-five miles and more. De Gier turned the volume down. Grijpstra peered through the crack of the bathroom door. “What did he say?”

“Who?” de Gier asked.

“The weather fellow?”

“Nice,” de Gier said. “Sunny mostly. Bit of a breeze maybe.”

“It’s going to be bad, sir,” the young man making the bed said. De Gier snarled at him and held a finger upon his lips. The young man cursed, started crying and ran from the room.

Grijpstra, alarmed by the banging door, exited the bathroom. “Were you bothering that poor fellow?”

“Me?” de Gier asked.

“Why did he call you ‘Asshole’?”

De Gier held up the coffee mug brought in from breakfast. “I inadvertently spilled some coffee on him. Must have hurt.”

“You know this is homo country?” Grijpstra asked. “Did you see all those German male sex tourists on their rented blue bicycles on Duval this morning?” He raised his eyebrows. “Never fails to surprise me. An entire area of human life I can’t even imagine.” He pointed at the radio with his shaving brush. “You sure the weather is good?”

“Top of the morning,” de Gier said. “Why do you think these super rich tourists hang out here? The weather is guaranteed. Even hurricanes wouldn’t dare come near.”

The schooner captain, a gangly hairy giant, looked as if he belonged to a different human species.
Homo habilus maritimus
, de Gier thought. The captain preferred, in view of the predicted bad weather, that the passengers come back the next day. Grijpstra couldn’t hear him because de Gier was blowing a conch shell, that he had bought minutes ago, near his ear. De Gier pushed Grijpstra up the gangway and called the captain’s attention to a sign on the quay.
Daily
roundtrips. “We’ll pay extra if you like.”

“Cash?”

De Gier peeled off banknotes, slowing down until the captain, who had introduced himself as Noah, commander of the sail and motor vessel
Berrydore
, relented.

Sailors hoisted brown sails. The captain started up his engine. The sixty-foot schooner maneuvered gracefully between the docks and other vessels. Incoming boats, escaping the coming storm, blew their horns. Motor launches and dinghies raced between the city’s quays and the yachts anchored outside the
harbor. A shrimp boat, resembling a gigantic butterfly with its nets raised to port and starboard, sounded a powerful blast, commanding more space. Military sloops were hoisted up the sides of a destroyer armed with missiles. Red and green floating markers indicated narrow channels of passage. A wreck, exposed by the falling tide, was covered by resting cormorants, drying their outspread wings. The shrimp boat was surrounded by pelicans catching fish offal tossed to them by sailors. Frigate birds planed effortlessly hundreds of feet above the turmoil, resting their small white heads on puffed up, blood-red feathered chests. The
Berrymore
used both her sails and her engine, speeding up to reach open sea. Captain Noah, sporting a fluffy beard that seemed glued to his boyish face, turned the wheel. He shouted commands. The sailors reefed all sails. The captain told de Gier that the
Berrymore
hailed from Maine, a forgotten state up north where she had been born more than a century ago. Warm winters in Florida, cool summers in Maine, the ideal existence. Each year the ship left the Maine coast late in the autumn and covered over two thousand miles of open ocean; in late spring she returned. “There and back, there and back, I can do it blindfolded.”